Belgrade has a special administrative status within Serbia[10] and it is one of five statistical regions of Serbia. Its metropolitan territory is divided into 17 municipalities, each with its own local council.[11] It covers 3.6% of Serbia's territory, and 22.5% of the country's population lives in the city.[12] Belgrade has been awarded many titles, and is classified as a Beta- global city.[13]

Belgrade lies 116.75 metres (383.0 ft) above sea level and is located at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. The historical core of Belgrade, Kalemegdan, lies on the right banks of both rivers. Since the 19th century, the city has been expanding to the south and east; after World War II, Novi Beograd (New Belgrade) was built on the left bank of the Sava river, connecting Belgrade with Zemun. Smaller, chiefly residential communities across the Danube, like Krnjača, Kotež and Borča, also merged with the city, while Pančevo, a heavily industrialized satellite city, remains a separate town. The city has an urban area of 360 square kilometres (140 sq mi), while together with its metropolitan area it covers 3,223 km2 (1,244 sq mi). Throughout history, Belgrade has been a crossroads between the West and the Orient.[14]

On the right bank of the Sava, central Belgrade has a hilly terrain, while the highest point of Belgrade proper is Torlak hill at 303 m (994 ft). The mountains of Avala (511 m (1,677 ft)) and Kosmaj (628 m (2,060 ft)) lie south of the city. Across the Sava and Danube, the land is mostly flat, consisting of alluvial plains and loessialplateaus.[15]

Belgrade lies in the humid subtropical (Cfa) climate zone, with four seasons and uniformly spread precipitation. Monthly averages range from 1.4 °C (34.5 °F) in January to 23.0 °C (73.4 °F) in July, with an annual mean of 12.5 °C (54.5 °F). There are, on average, 31 days a year when the temperature is above 30 °C, and 95 days when the temperature is above 25 °C. Belgrade receives about 690 millimetres (27 in) of precipitation a year, with late spring being wettest. The average annual number of sunny hours is 2,112. The highest officially recorded temperature in Belgrade was +43.6 °C (110 °F) on 24 July 2007,[16] while on the other end, the lowest temperature was −26.2 °C (−15 °F) on 10 January 1893.[17]

The first farming people to settle in the region are associated with the NeolithicStarčevo culture, which flourished between 6200 and 5200 BC.[20] There are several Starčevo sites in and around Belgrade, including the eponymous site of Starčevo. The Starčevo culture was succeeded by the Vinča culture (5500–4500 BC), a more sophisticated farming culture that grew out of the earlier Starčevo settlements which is also named for a site in the Belgrade region (Vinča-Belo Brdo). The Vinča culture is known for its very large settlements, some of the largest in prehistoric Europe;[21] anthropomorphic figurines such as the Lady of Vinča; the earliest known copper metallurgy in Europe;[22] and the Vinča symbols.

Following the Battle of Maritsa in 1371 and the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the Serbian Empire began to crumble as the Ottoman Empire conquered its southern territory.[39][40] The north resisted through the Serbian Despotate, which had Belgrade as its capital. The city flourished under Stefan Lazarević, son of Serbian prince Lazar Hrebeljanović. Lazarević built a castle with a citadel and towers, of which only the Despot's tower and west wall remain. He also refortified the city's ancient walls, allowing the Despotate to resist the Ottomans for almost 70 years. During this time, Belgrade was a haven for many Balkan peoples fleeing Ottoman rule, and is thought to have had a population of 40, 000 to 50,000 people.[38]

In May 1868, Prince Mihailo was assassinated with his cousin Anka Konstantinović while riding in a carriage through the park of his country residence.[54]

With the Principality's full independence in 1878, and its transformation into the Kingdom of Serbia in 1882, Belgrade once again became a key city in the Balkans, and developed rapidly.[50][55] Nevertheless, conditions in Serbia as a whole remained those of an overwhelmingly agrarian country, even with the opening of a railway to Niš, Serbia's second city, and in 1900 the capital had only 70,000 inhabitants[56] (at the time Serbia numbered 1.5 million). Yet by 1905 the population had grown to more than 80,000, and by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, it had surpassed the 100,000 citizens, not counting Zemun which then belonged to Austria-Hungary.[57]

The first-ever projection of motion pictures in the Balkans and Central Europe was held in Belgrade, in June 1896 by Andre Carr, a representative of the Lumière brothers. He shot the first motion pictures of Belgrade in the next year; however, they have not been preserved.[58]

After the war, Belgrade became the capital of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. The Kingdom was split into banovinas, and Belgrade, together with Zemun and Pančevo, formed a separate administrative unit.[62]

During this period, the city experienced fast growth and significant modernisation. Belgrade's population grew to 239,000 by 1931 (incorporating the town of Zemun, formerly in Austria-Hungary), and 320,000 by 1940. The population growth rate between 1921 and 1948 averaged 4.08% a year.[63] In 1927, Belgrade's first airport opened, and in 1929, its first radio station began broadcasting. The Pančevo Bridge, which crosses the Danube, was opened in 1935,[64] while "King Alexander Bridge" over the Sava was opened in 1934. On 3 September 1939 the first Belgrade Grand Prix, the last Grand Prix motor racing race before the outbreak of World War II, was held around the Belgrade Fortress and was followed by 80,000 spectators.[65] The winner was Tazio Nuvolari.[66]

During the summer and fall of 1941, in reprisal for guerrilla attacks, the Germans carried out several massacres of Belgrade citizens; in particular, members of the Jewish community were subject to mass shootings at the order of General Franz Böhme, the German Military Governor of Serbia. Böhme rigorously enforced the rule that for every German killed, 100 Serbs or Jews would be shot.[69] The resistance movement in Belgrade was led by Major Žarko Todorović from 1941 until his arrest in 1943.[70]

During the post-war period, Belgrade grew rapidly as the capital of the renewed Yugoslavia, developing as a major industrial center.[55] In 1948, construction of New Belgrade started. In 1958, Belgrade's first television station began broadcasting. In 1961, the conference of Non-Aligned Countries was held in Belgrade under Tito's chairmanship. In 1962, Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport was built. In 1968, major student protests led to several street clashes between students and the police.[74]

Belgrade is a separate territorial unit in Serbia, with its own autonomous city authority.[10] The City Assembly of Belgrade has 110 members, elected on four-year terms.[84] 13-member City Council, elected by the Assembly and presided by the mayor and his deputy, carries the control and supervision of the City Administration.[85] The Administration performs day-to-day administrative affairs. It is divided into 14 Secretariats, each having a specific portfolio, such as traffic or health care, and several professional services, agencies and institutes.[86]

The city is divided into 17 municipalities.[11] Previously, they were classified into 10 "urban" (lying completely or partially within borders of the city proper) and 7 "suburban" municipalities, whose centres are smaller towns.[91] With the new 2010 City statute, they were all given equal status, with the proviso that suburban ones (except Surčin) have certain autonomous powers, chiefly related with construction, infrastructure and public utilities.[11]

Most of the municipalities are situated on the southern side of the Danube and Sava rivers, in the Šumadija region. Three municipalities (Zemun, Novi Beograd, and Surčin), are on the northern bank of the Sava, in the Syrmia region, and the municipality of Palilula, spanning the Danube, is in both the Šumadija and Banat regions.

According to the 2011 census, the city has a population of 1,166,763, while the urban area of Belgrade (with adjacent urban settlements of Borča, Ovča, and Surčin included) has 1,233,796 inhabitants, and the population of the metropolitan area (the administrative area of the City of Belgrade) stands at 1,659,440 people. The main population groups according to nationality in the city municipality of Belgrade are: Serbs (1,505,448), Roma (27,325), Montenegrins (9,902), Yugoslavs (8,061), Croats (7,752), Macedonians (6,970), and Muslims by nationality (3,996).[92]

Belgrade is home to many ethnicities from all over the former Yugoslavia. Many people came to the city as economic migrants from smaller towns and the countryside, while hundreds of thousands arrived as refugees from Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, as a result of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.[93] Between 10,000 and 20,000[94]Chinese are estimated to live in Belgrade; they began immigrating in the mid-1990s. Block 70 in New Belgrade is known colloquially as the Chinese quarter.[95][96] Many Middle Easterners, mainly from Syria, Iran, Jordan and Iraq, arrived in order to pursue their studies during the 1970s and 1980s, and have remained in the city.[97] In 2007, a group of Iraqi Kurdish families stayed in UN Barracks in New Belgrade.[98]

Although there are several historic religious communities in Belgrade, the religious makeup of the city is relatively homogenous. The Serbian Orthodox community is by far the largest, with 1,429,170 adherents. There are also 3,996 Muslims, 16,305 Roman Catholics, and 3,796 Protestants. There once was a significant Jewish community in Belgrade, but following the World War II Nazi occupation of the city, and subsequent Jewish emigration, their numbers have fallen to 2,200 from over 10,000.[99]

The Belgrade Stock Exchange is also located in New Belgrade. Currently, over 1.2 million square meters of land is under construction in New Belgrade and the estimated value of construction in the next two and half years is over 1.5 billion Euros.

Serbia overcame the problems of inflation in the mid-1990s, and Belgrade has been growing strongly ever since. As of 2009, over 40% of Serbia's GDP is generated by the city, which also has 31.4% of Serbia's employed population.[109] The city of Belgrade's 2014 nominal GDP is estimated at 16.97 USD), which amounts to 859,329 RSD ($10,086) per capita.[110] In September 2013, the average monthly net salary in Belgrade was 53,564 RSD ($635), while gross salary was 73,970 RSD ($877).[111] In the annual Economist Intelligence Unit survey in 2013, Belgrade ranked 86th most expensive among 131 world cities.[112][113]

According to the Eurostat methodology, and contrasting sharply to the Balkan region, 66.2% of the city's households owned a computer in 2012[update]. According to the same survey, 60.5% of households have an internet connection; 90.4% at least one mobile phone, and 71.7% cable television.[114] these figures are above those of the regional capitals such as Sofia, Bucharest and Athens.

Most of Serbia's film industry is based in Belgrade. FEST is an annual film festival that held since 1971, and, through 2013, had been attended by four million people and had presented almost 4,000 films.[120]

A Slovenian orchestra playing in front of the statue of Prince Mihailo

With around 95,000 copies of national and international films, the Yugoslav Film Archive is the largest in the region and among the 10 largest archives in the world.[152] The institution also operates the Museum of Yugoslav Film Archive, with movie theatre and exhibition hall. The archive's long-standing storage problems were finally solved in 2007, when a new modern depository was opened.[153] The Yugoslav Film Archive also exhibits original Charlie Chaplin's stick and one of first movies by Auguste and Louis Lumière.[154]

The Belgrade City Museum moved into a new building in downtown in 2006.[155] The Museum hosts a range of collections covering the history of urban life since prehostory.[156]

During the period of Communist rule, much housing was built quickly and cheaply for the huge influx of people fleeing the countryside following World War II, sometimes resulting in the brutalist architecture of the blokovi (blocks) of New Belgrade; a socrealism trend briefly ruled, resulting in buildings like the Trade Union Hall.[161] However, in the mid-1950s, the modernist trends took over, and still dominate the Belgrade architecture.[161]

Ada Ciganlija is a former island on the Sava River, and Belgrade's biggest sports and recreational complex. Today it is connected with the right bank of the Sava via two causeways, creating an artificial lake. It is the most popular destination for Belgraders during the city's hot summers. There are 7 kilometres (4 miles) of long beaches and sports facilities for various sports including golf, football, basketball, volleyball, rugby union, baseball, and tennis.[165] During summer there are between 200,000 and 300,000 bathers daily.[166]

Tourist income in 2012 amounted to nearly 500 million euros;[171] in 2013, Belgrade was visited by 660,000 registered tourists, of which 520,000 were foreign.[172] Of those, more than 70,000 arrived by 550 river cruisers.[173] In 2013, growth of foreign tourists was recorded 24%.[174]

Belgrade has a reputation for offering a vibrant nightlife; many clubs that are open until dawn can be found throughout the city. The most recognizable nightlife features of Belgrade are the barges (splav), spread along the banks of the Sava and Danube Rivers.[175][176][177]

Belgrade nightlife on riverclubs.

Many weekend visitors—particularly from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia—prefer Belgrade nightlife to that of their own capitals, due to a perceived friendly atmosphere, great clubs and bars, cheap drinks, the lack of language difficulties, and the lack of restrictive night life regulation.[178][179]

Famous alternative clubs include Akademija and the famed KST (Klub Studenata Tehnike), located in the basement of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Electrical Engineering.[180][181][182] One of the most famous sites for alternative cultural happenings in the city is the SKC (Student Cultural Centre), located right across from Belgrade's highrise landmark, the Beograđanka. Concerts featuring famous local and foreign bands are often held at the center. SKC is also the site of various art exhibitions, as well as public debates and discussions.[183]

A more traditional Serbian nightlife experience, accompanied by traditional music known as Starogradska (roughly translated as Old Town Music), typical of northern Serbia's urban environments, is most prominent in Skadarlija, the city's old bohemian neighborhood where the poets and artists of Belgrade gathered in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Skadar Street (the centre of Skadarlija) and the surrounding neighbourhood are lined with some of Belgrade's best and oldest traditional restaurants (called kafanas in Serbian), which date back to that period.[184] At one end of the neighbourhood stands Belgrade's oldest beer brewery, founded in the first half of the 19th century.[185] One of the city's oldest kafanas is the Znak pitanja.[186]

The Times reported that Europe's best nightlife can be found in buzzing Belgrade.[187] In the Lonely Planet "1000 Ultimate Experiences" guide of 2009, Belgrade was placed at the 1st spot among the top 10 party cities in the world.[188]

In recent years, Belgrade has also given rise to several world-class tennis players such as Ana Ivanović, Jelena Janković and Novak Đoković. Ivanović and Đoković are the first female and male Serbian players, respectively, to win Grand Slam singles titles. The Serbian national team won the 2010 Davis Cup, beating the French team in the finals played in the Belgrade Arena.[196]

Since 1996,[197] biannual (autumn/winter and spring/summer seasons) fashion weeks are held citywide. Numerous Serbian and international designers and fashion brands have their shows on the fashion week. Belgrade Fashion Week is on the list of 40 most significant fashion weeks in the world.[198]

The headquarters of Serbian radio and television broadcaster B92 in New Belgrade.

Belgrade is the most important media hub in Serbia. The city is home to the main headquarters of the national broadcaster Radio Television Serbia – RTS, which is a public service broadcaster.[199] The most popular commercial broadcaster is RTV Pink, a Serbian media multinational, known for its popular entertainment programs. The most popular commercial "alternative" broadcaster is B92, another media company, which has its own TV station, radio station, and music and book publishing arms, as well as the most popular website on the Serbian internet.[200][201] Other TV stations broadcasting from Belgrade include 1Prva (formerly Fox televizija), Košava, and others which only cover the greater Belgrade municipal area, such as Studio B. Numerous specialised channels are also available: SOS channel (sport), Metropolis (music), Art TV (art), Cinemania (film), and Happy TV (children's programs).

Belgrade has two state universities and several private institutions of higher education. The University of Belgrade, founded in 1808 as the "Great School", is the oldest institution of higher learning in Serbia.[202] Having developed with the city in the 19th century, quite a few University buildings are a constituent part of Belgrade's architecture and cultural heritage. With enrollment of nearly 90,000 students, the University is one of the Europe's largest.[203]

There are also 195 primary (elementary) schools and 85 secondary schools. Of the primary schools, there are 162 regular, 14 special, 15 art, and 4 adult schools. The secondary school system has 51 vocational schools, 21 gymnasiums, 8 art schools and 5 special schools. The 230,000 pupils are managed by 22,000 employees in over 500 buildings, covering around 1,100,000 m².[204]

Belgrade has an extensive public transport system based on buses (118 urban lines and more than 300 suburban lines), trams (12 lines), and trolleybuses (8 lines).[205] It is run by GSP Beograd and SP Lasta, in cooperation with private companies on various bus routes. The BusPlus ticketing system based on contactless smart cards began operating in February 2012. Belgrade also has a commuter rail network, Beovoz, now run by the city government. The main railway station connects Belgrade with other European capitals and many towns in Serbia. Travel by coach is also popular, and the capital is well-served with daily connections to every town in Serbia and to many other European destinations through the central bus station.

The city is placed along the Pan-European corridorsX and VII.[5] The motorway system provides for easy access to Novi Sad and Budapest, in the north; Niš to the south; and Zagreb, to the west. Situated at the confluence of two major rivers, the Danube and the Sava, Belgrade has 7 bridges—the two main ones are Branko's bridge and the Gazela Bridge, both of which connect the core of the city to New Belgrade. With the city's expansion and a substantial increase in the number of vehicles, congestion has become a major problem; this is expected to be alleviated by the construction of a bypass connecting the E70 and E75 motorways.[206] Further, an "inner magistral semi-ring" is planned, including a new Ada Bridge across the Sava river, which is expected to ease commuting within the city and unload the Gazela and Branko's bridge.[207]

The Port of Belgrade is on the Danube, and allows the city to receive goods by river.[208] The city is also served by Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west of the city centre, near Surčin. At its peak in 1986, almost 3 million passengers travelled through the airport, though that number dwindled to a trickle in the 1990s.[209] Following renewed growth in 2000, the number of passengers reached approximately 2 million in 2004 and 2005,[210] over 2.6 million passengers in 2008,[211] reaching all-time peak in 2011 with over 3 million passengers.[212]

Beovoz is the suburban/commuter railway network that provides mass-transit services in the city, similar to Paris' RER and Toronto's GO Transit. The main usage of today's system is to connect the suburbs with the city centre. Beovoz is operated by Serbian Railways.[213] Belgrade suburban railway system connects suburbs and nearby cities to the west, north and south of the city. It began operation in 1992 and currently has 5 lines with 41 stations divided in two zones.[214]

Belgrade was one of the last big European capitals and cities with over a million people to have no metro/subway or other rapid transit system. The Belgrade Metro is considered the third most important project in the country, after work on roads and railways. The two projects of highest priority are the Belgrade bypass and the Pan-European Corridor X.